Ancient Treasures Read online

  When Mohammed el-Rassul led Emile Brugsch and officials from the Egyptian Antiquities Service to the tomb, they found that, although many of the funerary goods were long gone and the gold sarcophagi had been melted down, the royal mummies themselves appeared to be intact. With the threat of further looting by local villagers, a dangerous reality now that the location of the tomb was known, the Antiquities Service decided to act quickly. Within five days of its official discovery Brugsch had organized the excavation of the tomb and, with the help of 300 workers, had the remarkable mummies and more than 6,000 artifacts removed and shipped down the Nile to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Unfortunately, due to time limitations, Brugsch had not taken a single photograph of the mummies or funerary goods in situ, nor had he drawn up a precise plan of the tomb or made a list of the finds.

  Primarily because of his inside knowledge of the local antiquities black market, Mohammed el-Rassul was subsequently given a job as foreman for the Egyptian Antiquities Society. This appointment was to pay off in a big way when in 1891 Mohammed led one of the Society’s inspectors to another tomb at Deir el-Bahri (called Bab el Gasus), which contained the mummies of 160 high priests of Amun. However, the Society soon discovered that el-Rassul had known about this cache for some time before he revealed the location to the authorities, and he was subsequently fired from his job. A further cache of mummies was discovered in March 1898, this time in the nearby Valley of the Kings, by French archaeologist Victor Loret. Known as KV35, this tomb belonged to Amenhotep II (who reigned from 1427 to 1401 BC) but also contained a number of other corpses scattered around and a few interred in side chambers of the tomb. There were 13 mummies in all, most of them belonging to Egyptian royalty. Some of these were without coffins and had been stripped of their bandages. The mummies in the side chamber all had a large hole in their skulls, and their breasts had been split open, the result of the activities of tomb-robbers in a hurry to remove jewelry and amulets from the bandages.

  On November 24, 1901, the night guards in the Valley of the Kings claimed that they were overpowered by more than a dozen attackers who then proceeded to rifle the contents of KV35. Amenhotep II’s mummy was cut open and his amulets and jewels stolen, the body removed from the sarcophagus and damaged in the process. The attack was investigated by the chief inspector of Antiquities for Upper Egypt, Howard Carter (of future Tutankhamun fame), who believed that the robbery had been an “inside job” and, after examining footprints at the site, concluded that there had not been more than one or two people in the tomb. Carter’s chief suspect in the looting of KV35 was none other than our old friend Mohamed el-Rassul, though the case against him was dropped due to insufficient evidence. Carter subsequently resigned from the Antiquities Service in 1903.

  Of all the mummy caches, Tomb DB320 has probably the most remarkable collection of Egyptian royalty. Included in the cache were mummies of Ramses II and III; Amenhotep I; Tuthmosis I, II, and III; Seti I; Ahmose I; and Pinudjem I and II. It is believed that the tomb itself was the family vault of the Theban high priest Pinudjem II, though this is by no means certain. Examination of the corpses from the tomb by British-Australian anatomist and anthropologist Grafton Elliot Smith (the results of which he published in detail in his 1912 Catalogue of the Royal Mummies) provides some fascinating details about the Egyptian rulers. Smith’s examination of the body of Tuthmosis II (who ruled 1518–1504 BC and who was married to his half-sister Hatshepsut) revealed that the ruler, like all the Tuthmosids, had a noticeable overbite and was just 5’ 6” in height. Smith also noted that Tuthmosis II was virtually bald and that the skin of his face was wrinkled, suggesting that the king was over 30 when he died, though what he died of is a mystery, as no obvious cause of death could be found.

  1.1. Tuthmosis III basalt statue in Luxor Museum. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

  Smith’s examination of the body of Seti I, who ruled 12911278 BC and was known for building the incredible 80-feet-high Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, revealed that it was the best preserved of all mummies from Tomb DB320, and that the ruler had died in his 60s, perhaps from complications resulting from a chronic ear infection.

  The mummy cache from Tomb KV35 included the mummies of Thutmose IV; Amenhotep III; Ramses IV, V, and VI; and Seti II. There were also two female mummies, one of which is the so-called “Elder Lady,” which, after DNA testing as part of the King Tutankhamun Family Project (September 2007 to October 2009), was revealed in 2010 to be that of Queen Tye (c1398–1338 BC). Queen Tye was the Great Royal Wife of the pharaoh Amenhotep III and was also Tutankhamun’s grandmother. The other female mummy in the cache was given the title the “Younger Lady,” and Grafton Elliot Smith’s examinations revealed her to have been 5’ 2” in height, and no older than 25 at the time of her death. Smith also noted significant damage to the mummy, which was thought to have been caused by ancient tomb-robbers. However, the large wound in the left side of the mummy’s mouth and cheek is now believed to have been inflicted prior to death and to have been a lethal injury, indicating that the lady was in fact murdered. In 2003 British Egyptologist Dr. Joann Fletcher controversially claimed that the Younger Lady was none other than Nefertiti (c1370-c1330 BC) the Great Royal Wife of the pharaoh Akhenaten. However, this theory was rejected by most Egyptologists, including Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egyptologist and former Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities Affairs, who initially believed that the mummy was that of a man. However, DNA testing of the Younger Lady during the King Tutankhamun Family Project revealed the mummy to be female, probably both the sister and wife of Akhenaten, and also the mother of Tutankhamun. Candidates for the identity of the Younger Lady include Akhenaten’s second wife, Kiya; daughters of Amenhotep III, Nebetah or Beketaten; or Meritaten, daughter of Akhenaten and Nefertiti.

  But why had large numbers of royal mummies been found collected together in these caches? Why were they not left in the splendor of their original private tombs? The story really begins with the decline of the New Kingdom after the assassination of Ramses III around 1156 BC. With the rise of new foreign powers, Egypt began losing its grip on its empire in Asia, then came droughts, famine, severe official corruption, and internal strife caused primarily by the increase in power of the priesthood of Amun at Thebes. Indeed the high priests wielded such political power and influence that they became essentially the rulers of Upper Egypt from 1080 to c943 BC. Two of these high priests were Pinedjem I and Pinedjem II. Pinedjem I controlled Middle and Upper Egypt from 1070 to 1032 BC, while at the same time Smendes, the founder of Egypt’s 21st Dynasty, ruled over Lower Egypt. Pinedjem I’s mummy was one of those found in the royal cache at Deir el-Bahri. Pinedjem II also ruled over the south of Egypt (from 990 to 976 BC), and his mummy along with those of his wives and a daughter were also discovered in Tomb DB320 at Deir el-Bahri.

  During this chaotic time in Egypt’s history the looting of royal tombs had increased to epidemic proportions. In an attempt to rescue the royal mummies from the sacrilege of tomb looting, it was the powerful high priests of Amun who organized the removal of the mummies from their original tombs in the Valley of the Kings to a more secure location in the cliffs around Deir el-Bahri. Before removing the mummies, both Pinudjem I and Pinudjem II identified and relabeled them, and also replaced some of the coffins that had grown weak with age. Text written in ink on some of the mummies and labels on a number of coffins show that the mummies were moved around more than once, traveling from tomb to tomb before arriving at their final resting places of tombs DB320 and KV35, and at Bab el Gasus. For example, text on the coffins of Ramses I, Seti I, and Ramses II shows that during the reign of Pinedjem I these coffins had been hidden in the tomb of the late-17th-Dynasty Queen Ahmose-Inhapi, daughter of the pharaoh Senakhtenre-Tao I (who reigned from around 1560 BC). Queen Ahmose-Inhapi’s mummy was found near the entrance of one of the corridors in Tomb DB320, with a linen label inscribed “The King’s daughter and king’s wife, Inhapi, may she live!” With the numerous reburials in various tombs, many of the
rich grave goods that had originally accompanied the Egyptian royal dead disappeared. Although Gaston Maspero believed that New Kingdom tomb-robbers were probably responsible for looting these artifacts, modern Egyptologists are of the opinion that it was the Theban high priests themselves who appropriated most of the valuable funerary equipment, either for their own personal use or, more likely, to help bolster an increasingly unstable economy. Whatever happened to these valuable grave goods, it is clear that if the high priests of Amun had not responded to the threat of tomb-robbing in the way they did, our knowledge of pharaonic Egypt would be much the poorer.

  CHAPTER 2

  The Discovery of Tutankhamun’s Treasure

  The incredible discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 captured the attention of the world and sparked an interest in ancient Egypt that still flourishes today. Not only did the 18-year-old Egyptian king become a household name, but the excavator of the tomb, Howard Carter, and his wealthy benefactor, Lord Carnarvon, achieved worldwide recognition for their discovery of Tutankhamun’s rich treasures. The king’s mummy and the astonishing finds from his tomb have provided us with vital information about how Egyptian pharaohs lived and died, as well as about religious beliefs in ancient Egypt. Carter’s diaries, notes, and photographs, preserved at the Griffith Institute in Oxford1, provide a fascinating and detailed insight into the 1922 excavations in the ancient Necropolis known as the Valley of the Kings, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite modern Luxor. Yet despite these records and the very public nature of the discovery, most of Carter’s finds were never fully published, leaving unanswered questions about the tomb and its discovery. For example, how had Tutankhamun’s tomb survived unplundered for more than 3,000 years when practically every other royal burial discovered from ancient times had been looted in some way? And what is the truth behind the so-called Curse of the Pharaohs, and why did it gain such currency?

  2.1. Burial chamber in Tutankhamun’s tomb. Image by Mr. Arif Solak. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license on Wikipedia.

  Tutankhamun was born in 1341 BC, the son of 18th Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten, and ascended the throne probably in 1332/3 BC at the age of 8 or 9 upon the death of his father. Tutankhamun (“Living Image of Amun”) ruled from his capital at Memphis, to the south of modern Cairo, and married his half-sister, Ankhesenpaaten. They had two children but both were stillborn. As such a young king it is probable that Tutankhamun’s rule depended heavily on the advice from powerful officials like the vizier Ay and the general Horemheb, both of whom were to become pharaohs after Tutankhamun’s death. As pharaoh, Tutankhamun’s father, Akhenaten, had broken with religious tradition, sanctioning the worship of only one god, Aten, and rejecting all other gods. Akhenaten, known as the Heretic King, had also moved the Egyptian capital from the traditional Thebes (where modern Luxor now stands) to a new city in mid-Egypt named after himself and today known as el-Amarna. During his reign of about nine years Tutankhamun restored Egypt’s traditional gods and their temples, including Amun, and brought the worship of Aten to an end. He also re-established Thebes as the religious capital of Egypt. When he was around 17 or 18 years old Tutankhamun died unexpectedly, probably as a result of malaria and an infected broken leg after a fall from his chariot. A recent theory regarding the king’s death suggested by Hutan Ashrafian, a surgeon at Imperial College London, is that he suffered from a form of temporal lobe epilepsy and that his broken leg was caused by a seizure, which led to the fall.

  After his death around 1323 BC, Tutankhamun was buried in a relatively small tomb in the Valley of the Kings. The size of his tomb may be due to the fact that his death was rather sudden, before there was time for the completion of a more imposing royal tomb; indeed it seems probable that Tutankhamun was buried in a tomb originally built for someone else, perhaps a court official. Carter’s excavations of the tomb revealed three different sets of seals on the doorway, evidence that the doorways had been closed on three separate occasions. This indicated that thieves had entered there at least twice soon after the burial, and the disturbed nature of the tomb contents showed that they had made off with small valuable items such as jewelry. After Tutankhamun’s tomb was sealed for the last time, debris from the construction of other tombs accumulated in front of it, and almost two centuries later workmen constructing the tomb of Ramses VI (who reigned 1145–1137 BC) built their huts over its entrance, thus concealing it from view and inadvertently protecting it from grave-robbers for more than 3,000 years, until the arrival of English archaeologist Howard Carter in the early 20th century.

  Born in London, England, in 1873, Howard Carter first came to Egypt in 1891 as a 17-year-old artist hired by archaeologist Percy Newbury to help excavate and record artifacts from the Middle Kingdom (c2030–1640 BC) tombs at Beni Hasan in Middle Egypt. Throughout the next eight years, Carter worked on various archaeological sites in Egypt including El-Amarna (under pioneer archaeologist Flinders Petrie), Thebes, and Deir el-Bahri (on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor). In 1899 Carter was appointed first chief inspector general of Monuments for Upper Egypt, an area that included ancient Thebes, where he supervised a number of excavations. In 1905 Carter resigned his position after an incident concerning Egyptian archaeology site guards and a group of drunken French tourists where he supported the Egyptians’ rights to defend themselves.

  In 1907 Carter met the wealthy amateur Egyptologist and Fifth Earl of Carnarvon George Herbert, when he became the sponsor of the excavations at Deir el-Bahri and asked Carter to supervise the work. Between 1915 and 1922 Carter undertook a series of excavations in the Valley of the Kings, ancient Egypt’s royal burial ground, financed by Lord Carnarvon. Carter had been determined to find the tomb of a pharaoh named Tutankhamun since learning about a cache of funeral goods recovered in a 1907 excavation sponsored by American lawyer Theodore M. Davis. The funerary deposit had been discovered in the Valley of the Kings in an unfinished tomb known as KV54, and contained seal impressions with the name of a little-known pharaoh called Tutankhamun. Davis thought Tomb KV54 to be Tutankhamun’s complete tomb, and left it at that, but Carter believed that the real tomb lay in the Valley of the Kings waiting to be discovered. However, by 1922, after seven years of searching, no trace of the tomb of the obscure pharaoh had been found and Carnarvon was ready to withdraw his funding from the excavations.

  Howard Carter’s excavation diaries state that the season’s excavations in the Valley of the Kings began on November 1, 1922, around the entrance to the tomb of Ramses VI. Carter and his team soon discovered the remains of the ancient stone huts built by Necropolis workmen, parts of which they had found on a previous excavation. It took the team a few days to clear the huts and then, at 10 a.m. on November 4th, underneath the position of the first hut, Carter discovered a step that proved to be the beginning of a staircase, which had been cut into the bedrock about 13 feet below the entrance of Ramses VI’s tomb. The team spent the rest of the day and most of the next day, November 5th, clearing the debris from the staircase, and then around sunset Carter discovered a doorway sealed with the Royal Necropolis seal, showing the jackal-headed god Anubis (symbolizing a king) over nine enemies. Carter confided in his usually sober excavation diary that he felt “on the verge of what looked like a magnificent discovery—an untouched tomb.”2 He then made his way out of the tomb and returned home, sending a cable to Lord Carnarvon in England that must have made the aristocrat’s heart jump: “At last have made wonderful discovery in Valley a magnificent tomb with seals intact recovered same for your arrival congratulations.”3

  As news spread of the discovery of an unplundered tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Carter and his workmen continued clearing the area around Ramses VI’s tomb, finding more stone worker’s huts and making preparations for the opening of the tomb on Carnarvon’s arrival. On November 20th, Lord Carnarvon and his daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert, arrived in Cairo, and on the 25th they were at the entrance to t
he tomb in the Valley of the Kings when the first stone doorway was opened to reveal a descending passage completely blocked with stone and rubble. After the laborious clearing of this passageway, on the afternoon of the following day, November 26th, Carter discovered a second sealed doorway, almost the same as the first with similar seal impressions. Unable to restrain himself any further, Carter made a hole in the top of the doorway and, using a candle, looked inside. He describes in his excavation diary what he saw:

  It was sometime before one could see, the hot air escaping caused the candle to flicker, but as soon as one’s eyes became accustomed to the glimmer of light the interior of the chamber gradually loomed before one, with its strange and wonderful medley of extraordinary and beautiful objects heaped upon one another.… With the light of an electric torch as well as an additional candle we looked in. Our sensations and astonishment are difficult to describe as the better light revealed to us the marvellous collection of treasures: two strange ebony-black effigies of a King, gold sandalled, bearing staff and mace, loomed out from the cloak of darkness; gilded couches in strange forms, lion-headed, Hathor-headed, and beast infernal; exquisitely painted, inlaid, and ornamental caskets; flowers; alabaster vases…; strange black shrines with a gilded monster snake appearing from within;…finely carved chairs; a golden inlaid throne;…stools of all shapes and design, of both common and rare materials; and, lastly a confusion of overturned parts of chariots glinting with gold, peering from amongst which was a mannikin.4